Whether one or more or all make an instant impact remains to be seen. Receivers have a high bust rate at the NFL level, in part because they’re facing press coverage for the first time with a grown man pushing and shoving and tugging and generally harassing the kids who are trying to run their routes.

The biggest roll of the dice mentioned in this article is Kelvin Benjamin. My crystal ball is just as murky as the next guy’s and he could have a great career. I just hope that my team doesn’t spend a first rounder to find out.

I’m going to guess on the low end and predict 5. Kiper and McShay did an alternating mock that had 9 in the 1st Round! But they also seemed to be doing it pretty hastily and I’m not sure they were really paying attention to the overall board.

No one really knows how these guys are going to be.Victor Cruz was not even drafted and look at him now.It may take 2 or 3 years before you really know what you got so if you don’t get Watkins or Evans you still may get someone who could turn out to be very good.

I hope the teams at #27 and above have the same opinion of Benjamin as a couple of the “experts” giving opinions above. I would love to see him in Panther Black and Blue. He’s like a Tight End with Wide Receiver speed.

Teams would have to be extraordinarily foolish or desperate to take a WR other than Watkins or Evans in the 1st round. The draft is so deep in WR that you can get quality in the 2nd or 3rd round and you never know what you are getting when you take a WR–it’s such a crapshoot at the pro level. You don’t USUALLY (not never, but usually) see a CB or an OT or a DE dominate or have Pro Bowl caliber play unless they are 1st or 2nd rounder. That’s why you have to grab the great players at those positions in Round 1 and get excellent players or players you think you can develop in Rounds 3-7. You can make those players into solid, career starters and get your stars at the difficult positions in 1st and 2nd Round.

voyager6 says:May 8, 2014 7:07 AM

Cincinnati tried hard to extend A.J. Green and failed. They took the option year, meaning they will have to Franchise Green in 2015.

The M.O. for the Bengals is that they never re-sign a player once they have been forced to franchise him. If the Bengals join the party and draft a WR in the first round (which no mock draft has predicted), you can be sure that Mike Brown is back in full control of the draft (now that Zimmer and Gruden are gone) and Green will be gone in 2016.

cshearing says:May 8, 2014 8:57 AM

Not a surprise at all. With the way the NFL has protested WRs recently, the passing game has become more and more important. Where the big offensive picks were often a mix of WRs and RBs in past years, these days they will be nearly all WRs. RBs have been relegated to a commodity, unless you are an incredible talent like Adrian Peterson.

jgedgar70 says:May 8, 2014 10:40 AM

Despite all the hollering about having no receivers, I think the Panthers biggest need is for a left tackle. We have the best defensive front 7 in the NFL, and I would hate to see all that talent wasted in a bunch of 10-7 losses because Cam Newton spends all season on his back due to us playing Byron Bell at LT. We have Silatolu coming back from injury to play LG, but I can’t recall ever seeing Bell actually block anybody. There are so many good receivers out there; I think we should wait until round 2 to get one and get some OL help in round one.